Earlier today, Digital Bulletin released the April edition of their e-Magazine with Innovation Group covered as the headline article. Mike Hinton (CTO) and Andrew Considine (CRO) were interviewed for the article and both outlined the digital transformation journey the company has been travelling for the previous 3 years, the development of the Group’s strategic technology platform in partnership with Microsoft, and their thoughts on the future of the Insurance industry, InsureTech and the impact of our switch to a technology-led organisation.

The business landscape is evolving at quite a rate. A sharp focus on technology is seeing organisations dig up their roots and sow fresh seeds for a future dominated by digital. 

Hinton and Considine knew that making Gateway cloud-native was the only option if Innovation Group wanted to meet its global requirements through a single platform. It chose Microsoft Azure as its cloud partner, Hinton having enjoyed a positive experience with Azure in a previous role. 

Innovation Group worked closely with Microsoft from the very beginning and Gateway leverages a number of its PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) products to deliver complete application performance out of Azure, from the security layer with Microsoft ADFS to continuous integration through CI/CD and database services with SQL and BlobStorage. 

“When these services are readily available and served to you on Azure as PaaS products, it enables you to transform quicker. I think the speed of transformation was absolutely key to Innovation Group in terms of achieving its goals,” explains Hinton, who also highlighted the number of Azure Availability Zones worldwide as an important factor. 

“The partnership with Microsoft works because not only have they got good tech that we can use, but from a relationship perspective, we’ve got executive sponsors right at the top in the UK, going all the way down to engineering resources out in Redmond. That enables us to implement their products very quickly and it enables us to solve issues very quickly.” 

Gateway exists to offer end-to-end management to every stakeholder involved in an insurance claim, from FNOL (First Notice of Loss) to settlement. Policyholders are able to log a FNOL from any device, with Gateway recommending certified body shop or home repair contractors based on factors such as location, quality of service and customer preference. All parties are then able to monitor the progression of the claim through to completion. 

Innovation Group says the platform is built on the principles of “simplicity, connectivity and collaboration” and that it fits the future of an insurance industry intent on putting customer service at its heart. Automation is the glue that holds Gateway together, with a number of previously manual processes now automated and enabling huge strides in operational efficiency. 

“Previously, a lot of the operational processes were being managed through call centres and there was a lot of hand holding of policyholders and customers. With a single platform, we’re able to bring automation into that entire journey,” outlines Considine. “We’ve moved from a very manual environment into one where we have centres of excellence, where we’ve got app support and experts who are able to guide the customer through the journey.”

The full article can be found here: https://www.digitalbullet.in/casestudies/technology/2020/april/innovation-group/bringing-innovation-to-insurance/

Digital Bulletin, a global technology media agency, has featured an article written by our CTO, Mike Hinton, explaining how we are continuing to deliver critical services to our clients and partners globally, whilst in the midst of the enormous disruption caused by the Covid-19 crisis. 

Covid-19 has changed the way we look at remote working and has possibly changed the way we will work in the future for good. Microsoft Azure is helping us to meet this epic challenge. 

In every one of our operating regions governments have, quite rightly, enforced work to be completed from home, so we’ve had to think carefully and quickly implement solutions that not only enable us to provide continuous service but to do so in a scalable and secure manner. By utilizing Microsoft’s Azure Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) and app virtualisation services we’ve been able to provide our BPO centres around the world the ability to work remotely in a matter of days. This means we have continued to support our customers without a break in service whilst putting the health and safety of our people first. 

Technology-enabled remote working 

Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) was identified as an effective solution to standardise our remote working requirements around the world, aligned with our core technology strategy. We began a successful pilot programme in January 2020 in partnership with our German business, but following the identification of COVID-19 as a business risk this programme was rapidly expanded across the globe. We now have almost a third of our global workforce currently utilising WVD across all lines of business – from call centre to finance. As the global coronavirus situation develops over the coming days we will be looking at up to 100% utilisation across the workforce. 

Our deployment is easily and quickly scalable in response to ever-changing requirements; from a simple office closure in normal times to a global pandemic like COVID-19. WVD is also deployed within regions to ensure data residency requirements are met and performance is optimum. 

By being able to scale up platforms and remote working using Microsoft Azure’s various tools, in combination with Office 356 and Teams as our collaboration platform, I think the way we look at and see remote working in the future has changed already. 

We are able to continue to support our customers in the most difficult of situations and put the protection of our people first. Our customers can rest assured that their data is secure and our people can focus being safe whilst continuing to provide a critical service. Not only that, we now have the capacity to take on more from our customers and help our industry leaders in insurance during these uncertain times, whether that be for short-term service or longer-term engagements. We are seeing better productivity as our people are safe and we are still able to deliver service quality in support of our clients’ own end customers. 

The full article and more detail can be found on digital bulletin’s website: https://www.digitalbullet.in/thoughtleaders/technology/2020/march/surviving-covid-19/business-continuity-in-a-covid-19-world/